Help Wanted: Liberals Need Not Apply

So the Department of Justice has a little big employment discrimination problem. Who would have thought that particular agency was political? Certainly not this group of fired U.S. attorneys.

Ivy Leaguers and other top law students were rejected for plum Justice Department jobs two years ago because of their liberal leanings or objections to Bush administration politics, a government report concluded Tuesday.

[...]

As early as 2002, career Justice employees complained to department officials that Bush administration political appointees had largely taken over the hiring process for summer interns and so-called Honors Program jobs for newly graduated law students. For years, job applicants had been judged on their grades, the quality of their law schools, their legal clerkships and other experiences.

But in 2002, many applicants who identified themselves as Democrats or were members of liberal-leaning organizations were rejected while GOP loyalists with fewer legal skills were hired, the report found. Of 911 students who applied for full-time Honors jobs that year, 100 were identified as liberal and 80 were rejected. By comparison, 46 were identified as conservative, and only four didn't get a job offer.

The political filtering of applicants ebbed for the three years between 2003 and 2005, the inquiry found, then resumed by 2006.

So what the DOJ has done is illegally disqualify a bunch of liberal-leaning lawyers from employment, based on their political beliefs. Can anyone say lawsuit?

A full copy of the report detailing DOJ hiring practices can be found here.